I'm here for the gay (the LGBTQ+ anime/manga discussion thread)

BL or GL?


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That was the biggest damn letdown. I was so mad because it didn't even make sense with the characters.

I know, right? The story itself up until the final part was very well done and actually quite relatable to me (I saw a lot of myself in the newscaster's insecurity and two personas), that it almost made me cry. And then, the sex- it felt like they just rammed it in at the end (pun intended...) because it's a bl film and that's what's expected of this type of story. If they had taken the time to slowly develop the romance itself, working up to the sex, it would have been natural and fit the characters and how the story had been told up to that point.
 
Still not done with this, though this time I wanna touch on how the show did a good job avoiding "sapphic fetishization", as the video essay points out. I think one of the things I realize that had been "bugging" me (in a good way) while watching the show the first time was how so much anime/manga has basically primed me to expect fetishization tropes at certain story beats when there's lesbians involved. That's kinda sad, but I'm glad Arcane can probably help raise standards at least in western animation. And while there's probably some level of restraint on it due to the inevitable Chinese pandering, I love how the writer of the "cupcake" scene made it explicitly clear that the dialogue from the very first draft was intended to leave no room for argument that there was actual attraction at display.
 
Hey, hey, hey! Look who got the LGBT+ tag! :D
You and half the cast, dude.
I remember an old thread on 4chan where it was asked if 'golden kamuy was good to watch if you like gay stuff'
and people freaked like NOOOO it's not gay
which, is just hilarious in hindsight, because the manga lives off gay innuendo and Heavy Heavy Suggestion and genuinely has story based fanservice, like yeah man if you want characters being pretty gay about stuff + plot I'd recommend gk because although it's technically more subtextual it's kind of barely subtext

tsurumi's harem is real
 
I remember an old thread on 4chan where it was asked if 'golden kamuy was good to watch if you like gay stuff'
and people freaked like NOOOO it's not gay
which, is just hilarious in hindsight, because the manga lives off gay innuendo and Heavy Heavy Suggestion and genuinely has story based fanservice, like yeah man if you want characters being pretty gay about stuff + plot I'd recommend gk because although it's technically more subtextual it's kind of barely subtext

tsurumi's harem is real
If there ever is one chapter dedicated to everyone having a giant orgy, I won't bat an eyelid at this point.
It's extra funny since Tsurumi is one of the (pretty much only) two confirmed straight characters in the series (Ushiyama being the second). Although, jfc, can you imagine Ushiyama being there for the sumo scene?
 
How I cheer up my girlfriend every time:
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And no, I'm not linking the source, it's degenerate NSFW hentai lol
 
this is something I've complained about in the past, but I hate how when a BL or GL is considered 'good' and has story focuses other than the romance (while still including romance as a central part) you get reviews like 'oh just ignore the bl tag! it has so much more to offer!'
like this always being considered a lesser offering, when the work is good. it's tiring.
 
this is something I've complained about in the past, but I hate how when a BL or GL is considered 'good' and has story focuses other than the romance (while still including romance as a central part) you get reviews like 'oh just ignore the bl tag! it has so much more to offer!'
like this always being considered a lesser offering, when the work is good. it's tiring.

I see this happening a lot with Tricornered Window, where they're like, it's okay, it's not actually that gay with no kissing or explicit gay sex so it's safe to watch, and I just find myself fuming over it. It's so complicated, cause it's like I guess I like the fact more people are getting into the show but the mere idea that you have to play the it's not that gay card to even get them over here and sell them on it puts such a bad taste in my mouth.
 
I see this happening a lot with Tricornered Window, where they're like, it's okay, it's not actually that gay with no kissing or explicit gay sex so it's safe to watch, and I just find myself fuming over it. It's so complicated, cause it's like I guess I like the fact more people are getting into the show but the mere idea that you have to play the it's not that gay card to even get them over here and sell them on it puts such a bad taste in my mouth.

The reactions to that series swung the whole damn gamut of annoying reactions to bl, honestly. There was the "this is just like all the other shitty bl!", then "it's not like the other bl!", and then "this show was just queerbaiting!!". I think the queerbaiting thing might've pissed me off the most. I don't love when people go for "ignore the bl part!", but in Tricornered Window's case, it's pretty valid after like the first two episodes, but queerbaiting? Bc there wasn't a kiss? Really??

There's no way to win.
 
I think something I've been wanting but struggled to put my finger on for a long time is the lack of gay romance in shounen-type series. Even just the non-joking allusion of it.

In fact the lack of it kinda strikes me as odd considering how heavily shounen these days actually panders to the gaze of the female audience, and we know that the audience for publications like weekly shounen jump is damn near 50/50 on the gender ratio. For some it's actually a majority female, like with most of their sports series and series like Gintama, and ya'll know shipping is a huge aspect of the fan culture.
And recently I've been reading the manhua Latna Saga: Survival of the Sword King, and despite it having no romance in general it sure as heck makes me want to see the male leads smooch.

Kishimoto opened pandora's box on the shounen genre when he made Naruto and Sasuke accidentally kiss, I swear.
I wish there would be a series that could committ to it.
 
In fact the lack of it kinda strikes me as odd considering how heavily shounen these days actually panders to the gaze of the female audience, and we know that the audience for publications like weekly shounen jump is damn near 50/50 on the gender ratio. For some it's actually a majority female, like with most of their sports series and series like Gintama, and ya'll know shipping is a huge aspect of the fan culture.

This is where I wonder if the lack of female editors at popular shounen mags is what's holding stuff up. Not that women are inherently more likely to introduce legit romance or that men inherently don't like gay romance or whatever, but if the base culture of a particular magazine is so conservative that no one can apparently handle women just working on titles aimed at teenage boys, then how likely is it that anyone will be willing to rock the boat with anything more than hints? Shipping is deniable, actual romantic storyline is not.
 
I think something I've been wanting but struggled to put my finger on for a long time is the lack of gay romance in shounen-type series. Even just the non-joking allusion of it.

In fact the lack of it kinda strikes me as odd considering how heavily shounen these days actually panders to the gaze of the female audience, and we know that the audience for publications like weekly shounen jump is damn near 50/50 on the gender ratio. For some it's actually a majority female, like with most of their sports series and series like Gintama, and ya'll know shipping is a huge aspect of the fan culture.
And recently I've been reading the manhua Latna Saga: Survival of the Sword King, and despite it having no romance in general it sure as heck makes me want to see the male leads smooch.

Kishimoto opened pandora's box on the shounen genre when he made Naruto and Sasuke accidentally kiss, I swear.
I wish there would be a series that could committ to it.

It's kind of interesting thinking about it, because I'd consider Go Nagai the godfather of hot blooded shounen but Devilman was hella fucking gay:

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We can say what we want about how problematic Go Nagai can be, but he seriously didn't give a shit.
 
but if the base culture of a particular magazine is so conservative that no one can apparently handle women just working on titles aimed at teenage boys,
It's worse. It isn't targeted at teenage boys, and has not been for over a decade. It's well known how the change in age demographics in Japan has pushed the shounen "genre" into seinen territory as the low birthrates makes growth hard when based just on preteens, and just on boys. Kids under 16 make up less than 30% of the readership, which is an important slice of the pie but is both a lower-spending demographic and is itself sectioned into substratas that have different appeal.
Women make up a huge portion of the shounen readership demographic, one that the industry couldn't survive without. This makes the "boys' club" mentality even more egregious, as "well it is targeted at boys" becomes completely hollow as an excuse, which it already was since shojo magazines have male editors anyways.

And this is probably also why there's not been a gender demographic survey for WSJ itself in a decade. The most recent survey was this one which tellingly only did a gender survey for one of the other Shueisha magazines, not WSJ, and even that other magazine still had a full third of the readership be women.
One thing is being equality-minded, but even the tiny corporate capitalist in me is pissed at such a waste of opportunity for sales, especially in the digital age.

It's kind of interesting thinking about it, because I'd consider Go Nagai the godfather of hot blooded shounen but Devilman was hella fucking gay:

tumblr_inline_p23mpdLh0d1svihn0_1280.jpg

unhHWHe.png


We can say what we want about how problematic Go Nagai can be, but he seriously didn't give a shit.
I'm sure stuff like this was a big reason why, contrary to weaboo belief, mainstream Japanese culture has traditionally scorned anyone being deep into manga/anime.
 
Women make up a huge portion of the shounen readership demographic, one that the industry couldn't survive without. This makes the "boys' club" mentality even more egregious, as "well it is targeted at boys" becomes completely hollow as an excuse, which it already was since shojo magazines have male editors anyways.

But ofc men can understand what girls want - it's just romance, right?? What still blows my mind is that there largely weren't even female mangaka publishing in early shoujo mags, so it was literally a bunch of men going "this is what girls like, right?" until the Year 24 group, but sure, WSJ still can't have women editors bc how will they understand boys??.

Magazine demographics are largely a useless metric when it comes to shounen, it's true, but I think the mindset stays in the broad sense. Sure, acknowledge the female readership and play to them up to a point but don't make it seem like your story is one of those stories because girls' stories have cooties and we can't possibly scare the boys away. It's telling, imo, that many shoujo titles get labeled shounen because they aren't romance, but you rarely see the reverse - Ancient Magus' Bride is the only one that immediately comes to mind and I think it runs in one of the more consciously mixed-bag mags. The mixed-bag mags might deliver a romance with two boys, but I can't see the big players going for it any time soon... too threatening.

Hell, Shueisha doesn't even really publish bl. They have a subsidiary company with two bl magazines that are only like five years old, but that's it. If they're passing up that slice of the female readership pie, I don't see WSJ changing too much any time soon.
 
Speaking of popular shounen manga, I think the Sket Dance author is way ahead of everyone else in terms of LGBT rep with Astra Lost in Space:

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They also sprinkled in a a bit at the end of Sket Dance before going all in. It's really a shame we'll never see the rest animated.
 
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Speaking of popular shounen manga, I think the Sket Dance author is way ahead of everyone else in terms of LGBT rep with Astra Lost in Space:

Ho5c1Vs.png

467HZgu.png


They also sprinkled in a a bit at the end of Sket Dance before going all in. It's really a shame we'll never see the rest animated.
After the most recent Witch Watch chapter, I can't help but think--
In all seriousness, damn did it seem like the author was writing dialogue to bait the fujoshi.
Witch Watch is brilliant in how sure it has the main hetero pairing, but then there's still a bunch of other handsome boys with no romantic interest in the female lead, all living together in the same house.
Primo bait, and I love it.
 
Going on a Liar Game tangent from DAT, but despite all the negative feelings I have about the ending, I still really have a soft spot for Fukunaga, awesome transgender woman character to me. Yeah she starts out as a bad guy but she gets a good deal of character growth. I remember how fucking furious I was about the live action in how they turned her into a cross dressing cis man:
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Just so goddamn terrible, I wanted to punch someone. Like why the fuck would they do this? Talk about erasure.
 
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